M.Ed. / South Africa is one of the global hotspots of both biological and ethnic diversity. Southern Africa is rich in angiosperm species, and the angiosperm species count is considered to be 21,817. The traditional medicinal systems of different cultural groups and their herbal, animal and mineral materia medica have ancient origins which may date back to Palaeolithic times. Indigenous knowledge (IK) and cultural practices in many areas of the country provide learners with a good “entry” into the scientific world. A true constructivist teacher will realise the importance of building new knowledge on learners’ existing knowledge. This will show the learners how relevant science is to our daily lives. It might also open future career opportunities, and develop learners’ entrepreneurial skills. This fact is acknowledged by the new curriculum (the National Curriculum Statement), and Life Sciences teachers are expected to infuse their teaching with indigenous knowledge. When these new policies were created, policy makers focused on the what of desired educational change, and unfortunately neglected the how (Rogan & Aldous, 2009). Teachers often have limited understanding of the curriculum changes. The textbooks used in class give little or even no proper information about indigenous knowledge. Whereas some textbooks still provide information on IK in the form of examples, hardly any attention is given to teaching strategies and practical work that can be done in the classroom. My study highlights the problem that many teachers simply ignore IK, due to their lack of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) in this regard, and the lack of guidance and support from the Department of Education. As many teachers were trained in the “old method” of teaching and not in the pedagogy prescribed by the National Curriculum Statement (NCS), many of them do not have specific knowledge about the indigenous knowledge that they need to impart to learners. Those who are fortunate enough to have sufficient knowledge of indigenous knowledge systems (IKS), often lack the pedagogy. Once again, we need to go back in history to understand why teachers find it so difficult to teach IK. In the apartheid era it was a taboo to mention traditional medicine in the classroom. Our traditional medicine was often replaced by Western medicine. Black South Africans were robbed of their identity. Under the Suppression of Witchcraft Act, indigenous belief systems were undermined and in most cases referred to as pagan (heathen) belief systems. As a result, indigenous belief systems were viewed as something that derails society.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore deprivation experienced by the nineteenth century Sioux who suffered the loss of traditional lands, economic independence, buffalo, tribal customs, and religion. After years of reservation life, starvation, and deprivation at the hands of the U.S. government, white settlers, and reservation agents, the Sioux anxiously sought out a Paiute Indian Messiah named Wovoka whose message of a new Indian world spread rapidly throughout the Dakotas. The use of extensive historical and religious documents, as well as primary sources, will argue that the extent of desperation experienced by the Sioux drove them to accept the Ghost Dance as a substitute for the Sun Dance, the center of their traditional religious complex. With its hope of the resurrection of dead Indians, return of the buffalo, and renewal of the earth, it was immediately adopted leading ultimately to the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890 and the passing of Wovoka's religion into history.

This design/research study is located at the disciplinary interstices of Indigenous education and information science. It is motivated by the weaknesses of the dominant library knowledge organization systems (KOS) in representing and organizing documents with Indigenous content. The study first examines the nature of the problem and then explores ways in which Indigenous conceptual, theoretical and methodological approaches can generate new directions for KOS design. It thereby addresses the central research question, “How can Indigenous approaches to knowledge inform principles of design of library knowledge organization systems to serve Indigenous purposes?” An Indigenous theoretical lens, @ Cultural Interface, is assembled for the study composed of Martin Nakata’s (2007b) Cultural Interface, and Dwayne Donald’s (2009b) Indigenous Métissage. It is integrated with domain analysis in information science (Hjørland & Albrechtsen, 1995) to produce a methodology, domain analysis @ Cultural Interface, used to study the domain of Indigenous knowledge within post-secondary education. Information was gathered through expert interviews with nine Indigenous designers of Indigenous KOS from four countries; a user study with nine First Nations, Aboriginal, and Métis graduate students; and theoretical analyses. The study produced a theoretical framework for Indigenous knowledge organization based on four main findings: (1) knowledge organization is integral to educational infrastructure and is consequential for Indigenous learners and all learners; (2) a definition of the domain of Indigenous knowledge in post-secondary education, its boundaries and the boundary marker of Indigeneity; (3) an articulation of Indigenous knowledge organization as a field of study including a (partial) history, typology of design practice, objectives, and evaluation framework; and (4) a design workspace for conceptual enquiry. These findings are synthesized in a theoretical framework, Indigenous knowledge organization @ Cultural Interface, which can be applied in the design, study, and critique of knowledge organization for Indigenous purposes. It is noted that this study and its theoretical framework have been constructed incrementally based on selected theorists, particular participants, experiences, and literatures and offer only one of many possible interpretations. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

The foundation of this research was to establish a framework based on ceremonial work, gathering around fires of the longhouse to honour our ancestral wisdom. As a Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Coast Salish researcher and social work practitioner, I noticed an absence of specific west coast Indigenous and Coast Salish knowledge that would help inform social work practices, experiences and understanding in order to be good helpers and relatives within Indigenous community. I applied the Tl’áḵtax̱an longhouse model as a research methodology framework that guides an approach of traditional story-telling and place- based Coast Salish teachings and weaves together a cedar basket of knowledge. The intention of this study was to explore traditional knowledge that may offer pathways to build relational practice for social workers to form a deeper understanding of how to be good helpers and relatives in community. Respectful practice that is foundational to restore harmony, dignity and repair from colonial harm. / Graduate

Includes bibliographical references / The South African policy document of the Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS) for Natural Science (Department of Education, 2002), the National Curriculum Statement (NCS) for Life Science (Department of Education, 2003), and the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) for Natural Science and Life Science (Department of Education, 2011) recognises and affirms the critical role of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) in science education. These policy documents expect the science teachers to integrate indigenous knowledge in their lessons. This study strove to establish how selected high school science teachers in the Western Cape Province responded to the inclusion of indigenous knowledge in their teaching. The present study employed a multi-method approach, involving different research methods used in parallel or sequence but are not integrated until inferences are made (Johnson, Onwuegbuzie & Turner, 2007). This study took place in two main sequential data collection phases, namely, the quantitative data collection phase ((QUAN) and the qualitative data collection phase (qual). This contemporary approach was employed in order to provide credible and trustworthy answers to the following research questions, namely, 1) To what extent are the science teachers in the Western Cape Province integrating scientific and indigenous knowledge, as required by the Department of Education? If not, what are their reasons for this? 2) What are the teachers' views about and understanding of the nature of science and indigenous knowledge as well as their views on how the two worldviews can be integrated in the classroom? 3) How effective was the treatment in enhancing the teachers' ability to integrate science and indigenous knowledge in the classroom? 4) To what extent can the model of Snively and Corsiglia (2001) be useful for measuring change as the teachers implement the integration of indigenous knowledge in the science classroom? For the QUAN phase, the researcher adapted a questionnaire and a new questionnaire, the Nature of Indigenous Knowledge Questionnaire (NOIKQ), was developed. The purpose of this questionnaire was to obtain a detailed description of high schools science teachers' understanding of scientific and indigenous knowledge, as well as the problems the teachers encounter in their implementation of Learning Outcome 3 of Life Sciences and Natural Science. After the pilot study of the questionnaire and subsequent modifications to it, data were collected. Convenience sampling and purposeful sampling characterised the samples of respondents and schools. This sampling strategy ensured a total sample of 370 high school science teachers in 80 public schools, represented by urban and township schools in the Western Cape Province. The results of the QUAN phase indicated that the teachers did not receive training on how to integrate science and indigenous knowledge, and that they did not have sufficient knowledge of indigenous knowledge to teach this aspect confidently to their learners. An inquiry was embarked on in order to train the science teachers in how to integrate indigenous knowledge in the science classrooms. A workshop was chosen as an intervention to improve the teaching skills of the teachers and to develop new methods of teaching. A quasi-experimental design was chosen to establish how effective the intervention was. In this quasi-experimental design, one group of five teachers was assigned to the intervention, whilst the other group of six teachers received no intervention at all. This intervention was based on the model of Snively and Corsiglia (2001) for integrating IK in the science curriculum. These teachers had participated in the survey and were selected for their particular interest in the research study. Classroom observations and three teacher and six learner interviews were used for collecting qualitative data to establish the effectiveness of the intervention. A finding from this study is that the worldviews that the teachers bring into the classroom have implications for approaches they take to include IKS in their lessons. The results of the qualitative phase indicated that, given the teachers background (i.e., cultural, political and social), teachers interpreted and implemented IKS in different ways in the curriculum. The teachers who attended the workshop and were trained to integrate indigenous knowledge in the science curriculum were more confident than those teachers who were not trained to integrate IK in the science curriculum. This increased confidence resulted from the workshop which enhanced the teachers' IK content knowledge and made them less dependent on the learners for examples of IKS. The study offers important implications and recommendations to teachers and policy- makers regarding the implementation of the integration of IKS in the science curriculum, as well as fruitful avenues for further research.

This thesis explores how urban Indigenous women experience reconnections to cultural identity when they take up the practice of traditional beadwork. A beading methodology was used to explore the experiences of five urban Indigenous women in Winnipeg. Within this methodology, stories and conversations about beadwork are used as a way to gather and share knowledge in research. Participants were asked to share their experience of identity reconnections through beadwork stories. The major elements of this beading methodology and its underlying theoretical, epistemological and ontological roots are told through the story of the beaded medicine bags that were created for and gifted to each participant for the knowledge they contributed to this research. The author’s own beaded medicine bag is also used as a framework for a thematic analysis and discussion of the research findings. The themes identified through this analysis suggest beading as a multi-faceted and action-oriented approach that facilitates processes of journeying, remembering, relationships, asserting the self and healing that urban Indigenous women experience through their engagement with this practice. This thesis concludes by highlighting some of the important implications of beading as an Indigenous way of knowing, being and doing in social work practice and research to promote decolonization, resiliency, wellness and healing in our work with Indigenous communities. / Graduate

\ / Advertisements in African languages are generally confined to radio, and in that medium are factual, dialogic and direct. When used in television advertising, however, South Africa’s indigenous languages play a less informative role, being employed rather to index a concretised African essence, African identity, urban style, or a particular reified postapartheid togetherness and cultural mobility. In this dissertation I analyse six television advertisements, all using African languages or language varieties, broadcast over the years starting 2010 through to 2014. I reflect on how and why the African language is used and to what extent African languages are no longer seen by television advertisers as carriers of information but as exploitable symbols of trustworthiness, multiculturalism, belonging and innovation. Methodology includes interviews with agencies, sociolinguistic analyses of the varieties used, detail on brands and products represented by the language and a small pilot study with viewers to ascertain their responses to the six selected advertisements.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-79). / Knowledges are not distinct entities. They cannot be held in isolation as if bounded, discrete, or systematic. They are far too dynamic and complex to be thought of in this way. 'Scientific' and 'Indigenous' knowledge, however, are often discussed polemically and held in dialogical tension against one another. They are part of a set of dualisms that work under certain universal assumptions critical to Western epistemology. These dualisms include modernity/tradition; nature/culture; and subject/object. This study examines the multiple perspectives, including both scientists and local trackers, involved in the Western Kgalagadi Conservation Corridor Project (WKCC) in an attempt to resolve some of these dualisms. It focuses on the dimensions of tracking animals and data collection with a GPS technology known as 'Cybertracker'. Involving both scientists and people from the Kalahari with knowledge of tracking animals, the dynamics of knowledge production and the movement of knowledge are explored. Their work together demonstrates ways that movement and embodiment are central to the production of knowledge. Knowledge production and the relationship between diverse knowledges and approaches in the WKCC project are investigated without reducing them to the same epistemological foundation or holding them in dualistic opposition. Knowledges become part of networks and engage with one another through their movement, embodiment, and interaction with various non-human subject-objects. The use of the Cybertracker databasing technology shows that an engagement of multiple perspectives, the significance of movement, performance, historical connections, and subject-object relations in a variety of contexts are key to understanding the production of knowledge. The movement, agency, and relatedness demonstrated in various 'knowledge objects', including data, shows that the complexities involve a continual exchange of influence in which knowledges are always changing. The presence of diverse knowledges, expressed in both their relatedness and their tensions, are evident in their very movement in these networks as actors and the interwoven trails they leave behind. In the process, the boundaries between the dualisms become blurred, if not irrelevant.

To be meaningfully in solidarity with Indigenous liberation struggles, Marxism must bring Indigenous values of consensual intimacy, relational autonomy and responsibility to its centre, by (1) plucking out premises in ethical, political, ontological, epistemological and analytic registers that close off Marx and many contemporary Marxists from centring these values, and (2) bringing Indigenous resurgence values to the centre of Marxism to engage in normative and theoretical repair to enable a more decolonial praxis. I generate my understanding of Indigenous values through a close examination of Indigenous Resurgence Theory, guided by the ethical framework of the Two Row Wampum. With these in hand, I examine the aforementioned registers through immanent critique of the places in Marx's thought where he elaborates them, and suggest transformations that eventuate from incorporating Indigenous values. / Graduate

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of General Linguistics and Modern Languages at the University Of Zululand, South Africa, 2015 / The study explored strategies that can be used to promote the use of indigenous African languages for teaching and learning in the General Education and Training (GET) and (Further Education and Training (FET) phases of schooling in South Africa. The motivation for the study came from the constitutional recognition given to indigenous African languages as official languages in South Africa with the advent of democracy in 1994 as well as subsequent education related legislation that was passed to enact this constitutional milestone; namely the South African Schools Act of 1996 and the Language-in-Education Policy of 1997. In spite of the constitutional recognition and the accompanying legislation, the researcher observed that the provisions made in the Language-in-Education Policy were not interpreted and implemented in a uniform way in all South African schools. An exploration of existing research indicated that the issue of language in teaching and learning is not a new problem nor is it unique to South Africa. It is a problem that permeates almost the whole of the African continent. A large body of research has highlighted the value of a learner’s home language for teaching and learning, but, despite this evidence very little has been achieved in terms of promoting African languages in education across the continent. The study followed a qualitative case study approach in which isiZulu, one of the indigenous African languages was used as an example. Data for the study was collected in the province of KwaZulu-Natal which is one of the nine provinces that constitute South Africa where isiZulu is the predominant language. Schools which were used as data collection sites were purposively sampled from rural, peri-urban and urban based schools. Respondents were sampled from educators and learners in primary and secondary schools. For triangulation purposes data was also collected from specialists in institutions of higher learning within the KwaZulu-Natal province. Questionnaires, interviews and observations were used to collect data. The major findings of the study indicated that schools in all geographic dispensations do experience language related problems. In different ways responses indicated that the major cause of the language problem centered on the fact that the language of learning and teaching, namely English is not a home language for the majority of the learners. The language problem similarly affects teaching and learning in institutions of higher learning as well. In terms of strategies that can be used to promote the indigenous African languages for teaching and learning purposes, the study found that the four key areas which need to be the focus of any plan of promoting indigenous African languages are policy revision, language development, materials development and teacher training and development.